No British politician since then has exercised such supremacy for so long. Yet he annihilated his opponents in the General Election the following year and dominated the governing of Britain for twenty-two years. The younger William Pitt - known as the 'schoolboy' - began his days as Prime Minister in 1783 deeply underestimated and completely beleaguered. A lively, authoritative biography of one of the towering figures in British history who became Prime Minister at the age of twenty-four, written by the youngest-ever leader of the Tory Party.

With its rich cast of characters, including Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Edmund Burke, and George III himself, and set against a backdrop of industrial revolution and global conflict, this is a richly detailed and rounded portrait of an extraordinary political life.Paperback. He describes how a man dedicated to peace became Britain’s longest-serving war leader, how Pitt the liberal reformer became Pitt the author of repression, and how–though undisputed master of the nation’s finances–he died with vast personal debts. By seeing him through the eyes of a politician, William Hague–a prominent member of Britain’s Conservative Party–succeeds in explaining Pitt’s actions and motives through a series of great national crises, including the madness of King George III, the impact of the French Revolution, and the trauma of the Napoleonic wars. Though he was generally thought to be cold and aloof, his friends described him as the wittiest man they ever knew. Pitt’s personality has always been hard to unravel. No British politician since has exercised such supremacy for so long.

Yet within months he had outwitted his opponents, and he went on to dominate the political scene for twenty-two years (nineteen of them as Prime Minister). The brilliant son of a father who was also Prime Minister, Pitt was derided as a “schoolboy” when he took office. In this lively and authoritative study, William Hague–himself the youngest political party leader in recent history–explains the dramatic events and exceptional abilities that allowed extreme youth to be combined with great power.

William Pitt the Younger is an illuminating biography of one of the great iconic figures in British history: the man who in 1784 at the age of twenty-four became (and so remains) the youngest Prime Minister in the history of England.

William pitt the younger book